How the word Indian came.Scabby_Bull,_Arapaho_1806.gif
The word” urfolk” in Norwegian is quite new. For the Indigenous people, was the words “innfødt” and “urinnvånere” most used. For the indigenous people in North-America, was “Indianer” the most normal word. “Indianer” comes from the English word “Indian”. When Columbus came to America, he thought it was India, and then he called the people he met in North-America for the Indians.

The theory about the land-bridge over Beringstredet.

Based on the //anthropologic//, genetic and linguistic research, the scientists suggests that most of the indigenous people in America descended from people who wandered over Beringstredet from Sibir for 15000 – 9000 years ago. The exact moment and the exact route is still a question, and more and more people are starting to doubt about the whole theory about the land-bridge.

The waves of immigrations

More genetics researches show that it’s connections between the indigenous people in America today and ethnic groups in Sibir. indians-horses.jpgAccording to Ilya Zacharov from the Vacilov-institute for general genetic in Moskva, the northern indigenous people in North-America are related to tuvinerne, a Turkish-speaking people who lives in the Tuva-republic in the southern Sibir. The research suggests three separated immigrations.
  • The first wave of immigrations reached a country were the originally American megafauna, included mammoths, “mastodonter”, horses,Ground sloths and wool-hairy Rhinoceros lived. The most known cultures that developed in this time, is for example the clovis-culture and the folsom-culture, who is based on bison-hunting. The wave reached Land Of Fire (or Tierra del Fuego as they say in Spain) in the south at the end. Their descendants can be found in maybe the whole Central-America and South-America, and in the central and eastern part of North-America.
  • The second immigrations took the ancestors to na-dene people with them. This group came first to Alaska, and the northwest Canada. Groups reached also down to USA’s northwest coast, to USA’s southwest desert region, and became the ancestors to the dene-people in arctic Canada and Alaska, and the Apache and the Navajo people in the southwest USA.
  • The third wave consisted of the ancestors to the Eskimos and the “aleutene”. These groups came probably over Beringstredet after the land-bridge had disappeared

A special genetic in the last years suggests that there were four different immigrations from Asia. These studies give also a theory about immigrations from Europe, perhaps from people who had the same lifestyle as the Eskimos during the last ice age.

European colonizing

The European colonizing of North and South America changed decisive lifestyles and culture for every indigenous people in both european-colonization-of-america.jpgcontinents. From the end of 14th century to the end of 18th century was the indigenous people exposed for deceases, wars, slavery and most of the indigenous people were forced to move from their land. Either did they move right away, or they refused so the white people threatened them with weapons and so on. And many times the white man killed them without a care. The first group who Columbus met, was the 250 000 Arawaks on Hispaniola, which were turned into slaves for the Spanish people. In 1550 was it only 500 Arawaks still alive and the culture died in 1650. Still have they put genetic trace in the population on the Caribbean Isles. The Spanish people and other Europeans took the horse with them to North America and South America. Some of the horses escaped, and they breed very fast. Actually, the horse developed here in North America, but it disappeared later from the continent. When the horse came back, it had big influence on the indigenous people who lived on the huge plain in USA and Canada. The new means of transportation made it possible to have a more effective hunt, new war-methods and increased trade.
The European took also with them diseases which the indigenous people hadn’t anti-material against. Chickenpox and measles were normal diseases in Europe whom just a few died of, but it had highly death-rate among the indigenous people. Smallpox was an extra ordinary disease, which killed millions of people. It’s hard to say how high the death-rate for the diseases was, but some people suggest the death-rate for some indigenous people was around 80 %.
Before the Europeans arrived, it exist around three hundred languages in North America. Over half of them are gone now.

The Indigenous people in the 21th Century

At the beginning of 21th century, there were around 35 millions indigenous people in North and South America. Still many of them suffer of discrimination and poverty.

warriorhorseW11,karina.jpg


A short paragraph about the history in the USA.

Earlier were the indigenous people in USA called the “American Indians”, but now they use “Native Americans”. The indigenous people constitute about 2 per cent of the population in USA, and more than six million people identify themselves as Native Americans, although only 1,8 millions is members of one of the tribes. When the official politics in USA was to kill the Indians, just a small part of the indigenous people survived. They started to live in reservations. 561 tribes in the United States are recognized by the country's federal authorities.


tothemainpage,.jpg

back,_karina1.jpg

Picture number 1: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scabby_Bull,_Arapaho_1806.gif
Picture number 2: http://vatopaidi.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/επιστολή-ορθόδοξου-χριστιανού-προς-τ/
Picture number 3: http://trendsupdates.com/the-virginia-and-massachusetts-colonies-similarities-and-differences/
Picture number 4: http://www.spiritconnectionstore.com/flags.htm